FEW PEOPLE HAVE THE IMAGINATION FOR REALITY
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
RELIGION
I have no argument whatsoever with religion. None of them. For those who are devout and heed the teachings of their faith, I say Godspeed and bless you.
But, of course, in this modern day and age such a statement, unfortunately, cries out for clarification. There are adherents to certain religions that allow for death and destruction as the only available route to Heaven. They long for and sometimes cause the death, or at least the woe, pain and tribulation, to anyone who does not share their beliefs.
This flies in the face of all that the term, religion, is meant to imply.
Religion, in the truest sense, is admirable.
The commandment, Thou Shalt Not kill, is meritorious.
But people do kill people.
We, at times, take the admirable aspects of religion and twist them into our prejudices. We, at times, use our religions to justify killing others in the name of justice and whatever God we have acknowledged or were taught to accept.
I was a young child during World War Two. I can recall wondering how God could be on only our side. I was told He was the Savior of all people, including the sinful and evil. Had God forsaken the Germans, Italians and Japanese? If so, why? And could that be the reason for all the terrible things
I heard about those people?
I had been told that God would never turn His back on anyone.
Yet the young men and women of this country were sent off and into World War Two to kill people and to be killed.
Didn’t make sense to my young mind.
It doesn’t filter through my old mind all that easily, either.
I remain sincere in my conviction that religion, excluding those that condone and even encourage violence, can be a good thing, even when there are the people who employ it primarily as an answer to the enigma of death.
If it answers the questions and allays the fears of people, religion is a good thing. In that respect I like to consider myself a member of every religion, Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Pagan.
Each and every one of us, regardless of our religion choice, is present in an even lengthier list of those who strive for the same goal: to help us to lead decent lives and to answer questions.
Death. It frightens us to the extent that many if not most avoid even saying the word.
These people will use euphemisms that surely mean the same thing, but do not cause the foreboding brought on by the mere saying or hearing of the words dead, died or dying. I lost my husband (or wife.) He (or she) passed, or passed over. He (or she) left this world or went to the other side. He (or she) expired.
It took me many years before I came upon a religious belief that I could accept. Of course it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I spent considerable chunks of time searching before I was finally able to relax and stop asking myself and others just why, or if, this or that was true.
It was a religion that answered all of my questions, including those concerning death.
WITCHES & WITCHCRAFT
There are three basic tenets to Traditional Witchcraft. The term, traditional, implies only those who belong to a traditional coven and adhere to the teachings of Wicca, which is also called the Old Religion simply because it is the oldest known to mankind. Wicca predates Christianity and Judaism by untold centuries.
Those three tenets are a belief in the Oneness of All, a belief in and practice of magic, and an acceptance of reincarnation.
The first tenet has every living thing on earth — plants, animals (including mankind), insects, birds, bugs and reptiles — representing the Oneness. We are all part of One Thing, which can be called God, Jehovah, Buddha, or whatever deity is present in more contemporary religions.
Witches firmly accept that all of us, in every religion or total lack of, are talking, reacting and attempting to lead our lives in accordance with the same rules of decency spelled out, in Christianity, in the Ten Commandments.
The second tenet, the belief in and practice of magic is once again the familiar power of positive thinking. Witches can brew special potions — but so can we all. Witches can cast spells — but so can we all.
The difference is that Witches know such things will work. Those who try the spells and potions with an attitude of I sure hope this works — will find their success rate graded from very slim to none.
If you can set aside your disbelief for only a few minutes—and I know you can if you truly want to, try this easy experiment:
Most if not all of us have ample opportunities for such an experiment. You could be in a theater, attending a lecture, in church, sitting on a park bench, or sitting in the library. The scenario for a serious test of your own mental powers is easy to attain.
The next time you find yourself in a group of people, all of whom are sitting down and with their backs toward you, pick one as a target.
If it’s a man or a woman with very short hair, use your imagination to visualize a small circle on the back of their neck. If your only available target is woman (and today this could include a man) with very long hair, then draw that spot on their shoulder.
Stare at that spot, and then imagine a red dot right in the middle of it. Totally relax so that you can concentrate on that red dot. Do this with the firm belief that it will work. It should be only a matter of moments before your target reaches for the back of their neck or shoulder and rubs the spot you have imagined.
Can Witches use magic to cast bad spells?
Of course they can. But you would be hard pressed to find a Traditional Witch willing to do harm to another person. This fact is due to a solid acceptance of reincarnation.
This is the third tenet. Reincarnation can be thought of as the boomerang effect in life. Whatever you do to physically or emotionally harm another person is certain to come back on you.
Yes, there are those who "get away with murder", but it will eventually catch up with them, if not in this life, then surely in the next.
We have experienced life in both sexes and in all five of the races. People tend to reincarnate into relationships they held in past lives, with those whom they loved or disliked coming back with them — in a relationship not necessarily the same as before — but with similar bonds of love or hate.
How else, reincarnationists will say, can you expect to truly learn all of life’s lessons?
Theory holds that you will come back in future lives again and again until all lessons are learned.
Once you reach that desirable plateau, you will have reached perfection and will become an adept. You can then return to the Oneness if you so choose.
Wicca, the Old Religion, or Witchcraft accepts that Jesus Christ did exist. They believe he was an adept who chose to come back again — for obvious reasons. Witches do not believe, however, that Christ was born of a virgin.
With all the vile things either said about or implied toward women in the Bible, about the only way Mary could have been considered "saintly" would have had to be as a virgin!
References to the pre-existence of the soul can be found in, amongst others, the writings of the Sikhs, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism (including Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan teachings), Hinduism, Mohammedism, Masonry, and Theosophy.
Reincarnation’s fall from favor can be traced back to the Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in AD 553. It was at this gathering that the Byzantine Emperor Justinian declared war on those who taught and/or accepted reincarnation. All references to this belief were ordered removed from the Holy Bible.
The task was undertaken but surely not successfully completed. Today several Biblical references to the pre-existence of the soul are to be found in the King James Version of the Bible.
Reincarnation holds once the soul has reached perfection, that soul doesn’t require another life on earth. The soul is free to return to the Oneness:
"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." (St. John in Revelations 3:12).
If you ever hear anyone boast that they are perfect you have but to ask them why they are here.
Another popular misconception of Witchcraft is that certain people are born Witches.
Witchcraft is a religion one chooses, usually at age 18 or beyond.
Male Witches are Witches, not Warlocks. A Warlock is any man who has mastered traditional magic but does not belong to a coven.
A coven, from the same root name as convene, or convent, is made up of no less than 3 nor more than 13 Witches. And the number 13 causes witches no trepidation.
There is no such thing as witnessing a coven meeting. They are highly secret.
There is also a prevalent belief that the Coven Meetings of Traditional Witches are nothing but sex orgies. They most clearly are not.
The 4 main Sabbats (Holy Days) of Wicca coincide with the changes of the seasons. Coven meetings may focus on fertility, but it is the fertility of the earth, not one another!
The best-known Sabbat is Halloween (All Hollows Eve). During this ceremony Witches come together to mourn the death of a year and to prepare for the coming of a New Year. During one ritual the Witches write on paper their regrets, mistakes and misdeeds committed during the dying year. Then, as they circle a bonfire, one by one they leave the circle, approach the fire, and toss the paper into the flame while loudly moaning and bewailing their remorse and regrets.
This particular ritual is not unlike the confessional of some contemporary religions. The difference is that Witches take total responsibility for their mistakes and total responsibility for their redemption. Witches are not in league with the Devil.
This claim is truly absurd. The religion of Witchcraft doesn’t accept the existence of the Devil, Satan, Beezlebub, or any name given to this evil entity.
How can you be associated with something that doesn’t exist?
Witches hold themselves totally responsible for their actions, good and bad. They don’t have the easy out of being able to place blame on the Devil.
Why is Witchcraft so misunderstood and maligned? Why, at a time in our history, were witches hanged or burned at the stake?
The reasons can be traced back to the early history of the Catholic Church.
Please bear in mind that I am describing history — not present day Catholicism.
The Catholic Church, at its inception, required large congregations of worshipers to make the Church powerful. People had been depending on the Witches to alleviate any and all their problems and weren’t anxious to leave the familiar security to enter under the guidance of a new order of things.
Back in those early days the Catholic Church — not exactly the most benign organization, for Popes fought bloody battles with other Popes for the right of control of the Church — desperately needed followers. Witchcraft was the one big hurdle that had to be addressed. Something had to be done to coax the populace away from the Witches and into the Church.
The respect in which Witches were held had to be obliterated. This was the goal of the Church Fathers.
How to do it? Witches couldn’t be summarily executed for this would only succeed in turning them into martyrs. The only recourse was to convince people that Witches were evil. And how was one to accomplish that desirable and necessary end?
Bring in the Devil.
But first, there had to be a Devil.
If you look in your Bible, you will notice that, when the Devil is first mentioned, it is spelled with a small ‘d’ — and interpreted as an undesirable, malevolent force. It was later in the Bible that the word took on the capital letter and became an entity representing the totality of all evil. Once this was accomplished the rest was relatively simple — just convince people that all Witches were in league with the Devil and that anyone associating with them risked guaranteed eternal damnation in Hell. Heaven and Hell?
Drawing people into the Church would have been an impossible task if they weren’t convinced that Heaven and Hell exist. If Hell was the price to be paid for sin and the Church was their only means of deliverance, then they would surely be more than willing to seek the rewards of membership. I’m not saying those long-ago people lacked logic and/or intelligence. They were however, for the most part, without education. The largest percentage of men and women of that era did not know how to read or write, not because they were stupid but rather that educational opportunity simply didn’t exist for the masses, especially the female faction.
History teaches us that such attributes, in that time, were not considered necessary or even admirable.
How would the fledgling religion deal with the wretched, lost souls who worshipped the Devil?
Execute them. Burn them at the stake. Rid the world of their depravity.
And that is exactly what the church fathers tried to do.
Today Traditional Witches tend to believe that very few, if any, actual members of Wicca were burned in Salem, Massachusetts or elsewhere. Witches have never been slow-witted and surely would never willingly draw such calamitous attraction to themselves.
Here is a good example:
In those dark days of Witch hunting in Salem Massachusetts, having possession of a crystal ball was commensurate with a death sentence. Members of covens were quick to solve that problem.
The fishermen of the day utilized the colorful glass floats on their nets. These glass floats were acceptable tools for "scrying":
The term, scrying, implies the use of any number of objects to focus attention. Scrying can be done not only by staring into crystal balls, but into glasses of water, tea, or any liquid, or into a candle flame, at a mere mark on the wall — or fish floats.
The women and men who followed the teachings of Witchcraft not only got rid of their crystal balls and started using the fish floats — they spread the word that such items in your home were solid guarantees against any Witch getting anywhere near you. Homes in Salem promptly displayed the fish floats and the Witches continued their practice of scrying without fear.
